Bob Cringeley makes a bold statement in a blog post responding to Apple's iCloud announcement: "Jobs is going to sacrifice the Macintosh in order to kill Windows." He says, "The incumbent platform today is Windows because it is in Windows machines that nearly all of our data and our ability to use that data have been trapped. But the Apple announcement changes all that. Suddenly the competition isn't about platforms at all, but about data, with that data being crunched on a variety of platforms through the use of cheap downloaded apps."

The reason is even simpler: They just wanted to have a service that used the word "cloud" like everyone else

Everyone wants to say cloud. Of course, what everyone doesn't want the non-techie users to know is that the cloud is as old as unix (maybe older). It's no different than having mainframes that users had to login to from terminals. How funny it is to listen to companies attempt to charge for the services of an old technology, but talk about it as if it's brand new!